“Adversity makes strange bedfellows.”
“The leopard does not change his spots.”
“This passion, and the death of a dear friend, would go near to make a man look sad.”
Source: The Plays of Shakspeare
“No reckoning made, but sent to my account with all my imperfections on my head.”
“Sometimes, less is more.”
“Nor aught so good but strained from that fair use,
Revolts from true birth stumbling on abuse.”
Source: Romeo and Juliet
“The bitter clamor of two eager tongues.”
Source: The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: Comprising His Dramatic and Poetical Works
“Tis often seen
Adoption strives with nature; and choice breeds
A native slip to us from foreign lands.”
Source: The Complete Works of William Shakspeare
“Wait for the season when to cast good counsels upon subsiding passion.”
“Direct not him whose way himself will choose;
'Tis breath not lack'st, and that breath wilt thou lose.”
Source: The Dramatic Works of William Shakspeare
“Affection, mistress of passion, sways it to the mood of what it likes or loathes.”
Source: The Comedies, Histories, Tragedies, and Poems of William Shakspere
“Nature, as it grows again toward earth, is fashioned for the journey, dull and heavy.”
Source: The Plays of William Shakspeare
“Nor age so eat up my invention.”
Source: The New Oxford Shakespeare: Modern Critical Edition: The Complete Works
“O sir, you are old; nature in you stands on the very verge of her confine; you should be ruled and led by some discretion, that discerns your fate better than you yourself.”
“Some smack of age in you, some relish of the saltness of time.”
“Your date is better in your pie and your porridge than in your cheek.”
Source: As you like it. All's well that ends well
“Pray, do not mock me.
I am a very foolish fond old man,
Fourscore and upward, not an hour more nor less;
And, to deal plainly,
I fear I am not in my perfect mind.”
“Time hath not yet so dried this blood of mine,
Nor age so eat up my invention,
Nor fortune made such havoc of my means,
Nor my bad life reft me so much of friends,
But they shall find awaked in such a kind
Both strength of limb and policy of mind,
Ability in means, and choice of friends,
To quit me of them throughly.”
Source: The Wisdom and Genius of Shakespeare: Comprising Moral Philosophy, Delineations of Character, Paintings of Nature and the Passions, Seven Hundred Aphorisms, and Miscellaneous Pieces : with Select and Original Notes, and Scriptural References ...
“Though now this grained face of mine be hid
In sap-consuming winter's drizzled snow,
And all the conduits of my blood froze up,
Yet hath my night of life some memory,
My wasting lamps some fading glimmer left,
My dull deaf ears a little use to hear.”
Source: The Comedy of Errors
“Give me a staff of honor for mine age,
But not a sceptre to control the world.”
Source: The works of William Shakespeare: comprising his dramatic and poetical works, complete
“Pastime passing excellent, if it he husbanded with modesty.”
Source: The New Oxford Shakespeare: Modern Critical Edition: The Complete Works
“There is no such sport as sport by sport o'erthrown.”
“Have you not love enough to bear with me, when that rash humor which my mother gave me makes me forgetful.”
Source: The Complete Works of Shakspeare, Revised from the Best Authorities : with a Memoir, and Essay on His Genius
“Scarce can I speak, my choler is so great. Oh! I could hew up rocks, and fight with flint.”
Source: Second Tetralogy In Plain and Simple English: Includes Richard II, Henry IV Parts 1 and 2, and Henry V
“To be in anger is impiety, but who is man that is not angry?”
Source: An Index to the Remarkable Passages and Words Made Use of by Shakspeare; Calculated to Point Out the Different Meanings to which the Words are Applied. By the Rev. Samuel Auscough ..
“You are yoked with a lamb,
That carries anger as the flint bears fire;
Who, much enforced, shows a hasty spank,
And straight is cold again.”
Source: Tragedies
“Anger's my meat. I sup upon myself,
And so shall starve with feeding.”
“If it be you that stirs these daughters' hearts
Against their father, fool me not so much
To bear it tamely; touch me with noble anger,
And let not women's weapons, water drops,
Stain my man's cheeks.”
Source: King Lear
“Anger is like
A full hot horse, who being allowed his way,
Self-mettle tires him.”
Source: King Henry VIII: Third Series
“Bait the hook well. This fish will bite.”
Source: The plays of William Shakespeare
“He receives comfort like cold porridge.”
“Here is a rural fellow that will not be denied your Highness' presence: he brings you figs.”
Source: The Works of William Shakspeare. Life, Glossary, &c. Reprinted from the Original Edition, and Compared with All Recent Commentators
“Mine eyes smell onions: I shall weep anon.”
Source: The Taming of The Shrew: Third Series
“The last taste of sweets is sweetest last.”
“I must to the barber's, monsieur, for methinks I am marvellous hairy about the face.”
“I can call spirits from the vasty deep.”
“The sweetest honey
Is loathsome in his own deliciousness.”
Source: Romeo and Juliet
“Men prize the thing ungained more than it is.”
“Fore God, you have here a goodly dwelling and a rich.”
Source: Shakespere's Werke
“For my own part, I shall be glad to learn of noble men.”
Source: King Lear: A Tragedy in Five Acts
“Hadst thou no poison mixed, no sharp-ground knife,
No sudden mean of death, though ne'er so mean,
But 'banished' to kill me--'banished'?
O friar, the damned use that word in hell;
Howling attends it! How hast thou the heart,
Being a divine, a ghostly confessor,
A sin-absolver, and my friend professed,
To mangle me with that word 'banished'?”
Source: The Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare: With the Corrections and Illustrations of Various Commentators: Comprehending a Life of the Poet, and an Enlarged History of the Stage
“Myself--a prince by fortune of my birth,
Near to the king in blood, and near in love
Till you did make him misinterpret me--
Have stooped my neck under your injuries
And sighed my English breath in foreign clouds,
Eating the bitter bread of banishment,
Whilst you have fed upon my signories,
Disparked my parks and felled my forest woods,
From my own windows torn my household coat,
Rased out my imprese, leaving me no sign,
Save men's opinions and my living blood,
To show the world I am a gentleman.”
Source: King Richard II: Third Series
“Some kinds of baseness are nobly undergone.”
Source: The Tempest
“A tardiness in nature,
Which often leaves the history unspoke,
That it intends to do.”
Source: King Lear: Third Series
“There should be hours for necessities, not for delights; times to repair our nature with comforting repose, and not for us to waste these times.”
Source: Dramatical Works: King Henry the Eighth
“The sense of death is most in apprehension.”
“The Thane of Cawdor lives,
A prosperous gentleman; and to be King
Stands not within the prospect of belief,
No more than to be Cawdor.”
Source: The Complete Works of William Shakspeare
“Verily, I swear, it is better to be lowly born, and range with humble livers in content, than to be perked up in a glistering grief, and wear a golden sorrow.”
Source: King Henry VIII: Third Series
“And send him many years of sunshine days!”
Source: The Complete Works of William Shakspeare
“This is some fellow,
Who having been prais'd for bluntness, doth affect
A saucy roughness and constrains the garb
Quite from his nature: he can't flatter, he!
An honest mind and plain,--he must speak truth!
And they will take it so; if not he's plain.
These kind of knaves I know, which in this plainness
Harbor more craft, and far corrupter ends,
Than twenty silly, ducking observants,
That stretch their duty nicely.”
Source: A Treasury of Thought from Shakespeare: The Choice Sayings of His Principal Characters, Analytically and Alphabetically Arranged
